Hey folks, pardon the rookie question. We need to build a few hundred of these per year, so I thought I’d tool up, and wanted to figure out how to do this “cheaply”.
Parameters. Stainless steel rods, with one end sharpened to a point, and the other end deburred. Typically 30cm long with no real tolerance issues, and no real parameters on the point other than “if you hit it with a hammer, you should be able to drive them into the earth.” Typically made of 3/8" or 1/2" stainless.
My main problem is: stainless is fucking hard and destroys my bench grinder when grinding tips onto it. Is there a better grinder I could be using? Or perhaps I should be cutting these on a small lathe?
Also, when I buy stainless stock, I usually have the metal wholesaler cut them to length for us, but they charge quite a bit. The stainless destroys my bandsaw blades, so perhaps there is a better option? Is there a mitre saw blade that is rated for stainless? Or should I also be using a parting tool on a lathe here?
Thoughts are appreciated. Such a simple thing, but stainless so…
You’re very welcome, glad to help! I’ve not had to work with stainless too much in my job, but I did take some decent material science courses on my way to becoming a mechanical engineer- and quickly applied them to actual machining.
The pyramidal point may work, but rotary saw blades may want to deflect and start rubbing when going diagonal across a round cross section, especially one so small. It ends up being a pretty small bit to cut. It’s worth trying though, as it’d really reduce the amount of labor and tooling you’d have to put into this.